Keosawa's Powerlifting Log

[toonie]

Sweet squat! Looked good in real time too!

 

[dza]

Real nice looking squat Keo. Are you planning on widening your stance any or are you going to continue narrow as long as you keep making gains?

 

[cXs808]

Quick question: How come your teammates don't spot you?

 

[KnuckleSangwich]

Quick question: How come your teammates don't spot you?

I was going to mention this. Not that the rep was overly difficult but it is a max attempt and did come up fairly slow. We would have 2 guys on the sides and one behind and your guy is happy to stand there and pick his nose...

 

[squatsquatsquat]

Great squatting as usual, Keo. Keep up the good work!

 

[LegioTitan]

More sick(either definition is fine) PRs. Good, goooooood.

Also, I don't think I'd ever want to be spotted while squatting. Having someone that close to me would freak me out. I'm too accustomed to just dumping bumpers.

 

[Jake Pudenz]

I'm with you, Legio. If I am going to miss a rep, I just sit down in the hole and dump it off my back. No problem at all.

 

[KnuckleSangwich]

Dumping bumpers is one thing. Dumping a barbell loaded with 450lbs onto a (brand new) rack is a different story. You most likely wouldn't hurt anything but you'd almost certainly have a university worker or rec manager all over your shit about it. It sounds like they give Keo and his club a pretty wide berth when it comes allowing them to do their training. I wouldn't take any chances to jeopardize that.

I lost my grip and dropped a light DL in college and they nearly banned all DLing. You guys have your own equip a university gym is a whole 'nother monster.

 

[Keosawa]

Great squatting as usual, Keo. Keep up the good work!

Those Squats please Squatur. A many bountiful blessings shall come your way.

You really don't disappoint. Awesome squats keo!

Real nice looking squat Keo. Are you planning on widening your stance any or are you going to continue narrow as long as you keep making gains?

Quick question: How come your teammates don't spot you?

I was going to mention this. Not that the rep was overly difficult but it is a max attempt and did come up fairly slow. We would have 2 guys on the sides and one behind and your guy is happy to stand there and pick his nose...

More sick(either definition is fine) PRs. Good, goooooood.

Also, I don't think I'd ever want to be spotted while squatting. Having someone that close to me would freak me out. I'm too accustomed to just dumping bumpers.

I'm with you, Legio. If I am going to miss a rep, I just sit down in the hole and dump it off my back. No problem at all.

Thanks everyone!

A few things in response to these comments:

First, I've stubbornly stuck with my narrow stance after telling myself I was going to change it following my disappointing last meet. I don't have balance issues in training, so I think it's more of an issue with my meet performance than with the stance itself. Plus, it's my strongest stance, and widening it takes a lot off of my squat.

That said, I need to start squatting more with a wider stance to build strength. I'm just being a stubborn ass right now.

Second, I didn't have a spotter because my safety pins are set high enough, and because I frankly don't feel I need it. The only reason I would have side spotters would be to get used to people standing around my bar; this is something that I think throws me off at meets. For 460 (which I failed), I had my teammates spotting me on the side.

This is basically my call, and I could have the spotters if I felt I needed them. But I don't feel in danger, so I don't ask for it.

 

[Jake Pudenz]

Dumping bumpers is one thing. Dumping a barbell loaded with 450lbs onto a (brand new) rack is a different story. You most likely wouldn't hurt anything but you'd almost certainly have a university worker or rec manager all over your shit about it. It sounds like they give Keo and his club a pretty wide berth when it comes allowing them to do their training. I wouldn't take any chances to jeopardize that.

I lost my grip and dropped a light DL in college and they nearly banned all DLing. You guys have your own equip a university gym is a whole 'nother monster.

Having gone to school there and trained there from time to time, I can tell you that dumping a squat wouldn't be that big of a deal. I've seen more than a couple guys load up the bar for shrugs and slam it down on the pins and while it destroyed pretty much all the $900 Sorinex bars they got, there was no issues with the staff.

 

[Keosawa]

Dumping bumpers is one thing. Dumping a barbell loaded with 450lbs onto a (brand new) rack is a different story. You most likely wouldn't hurt anything but you'd almost certainly have a university worker or rec manager all over your shit about it. It sounds like they give Keo and his club a pretty wide berth when it comes allowing them to do their training. I wouldn't take any chances to jeopardize that.

I lost my grip and dropped a light DL in college and they nearly banned all DLing. You guys have your own equip a university gym is a whole 'nother monster.

At the old place, they'd give us shit for dropping weights, but this place is so big that none of the staff would be close enough to notice. And frankly, they don't even seem to care.

 

[Babyeater]

At the old place, they'd give us shit for dropping weights, but this place is so big that none of the staff would be close enough to notice. And frankly, they don't even seem to care.

The level to which the staff is complacent with our activities continues to impress me. I was actually asked by a friend yesterday whether or not the staff got on our case about anything and I replied that not only are our cases left un gotten-on, the staff mostly consists of 20 year-old scrawny guys and chicks who seem apprehensive about entering the weight area for either their jobs or their own fitness pursuits. It's both awesome and kind of pathetic. At the gym I went to during undergrad, the weight room was staffed with mostly knowledgeable students who knew how to spot and were great about hounding people to pick up their weights/unrack plates/not be jerks and leave shit everywhere.

In other words, we can basically do what we want, which is cool because we tend to know how to do what we want without killing ourselves, but some lifters in there seem bent on self-destruction (no safety pins/getting stapled while squatting, benching without any concept of their point of failure, etc) and could probably benefit/survive if someone came up to them in an official capacity and informed them that the risk of death resulting from their own activity was moderate-to-high.

 

[Keosawa]

The level to which the staff is complacent with our activities continues to impress me. I was actually asked by a friend yesterday whether or not the staff got on our case about anything and I replied that not only are our cases left un gotten-on, the staff mostly consists of 20 year-old scrawny guys and chicks who seem apprehensive about entering the weight area for either their jobs or their own fitness pursuits. It's both awesome and kind of pathetic. At the gym I went to during undergrad, the weight room was staffed with mostly knowledgeable students who knew how to spot and were great about hounding people to pick up their weights/unrack plates/not be jerks and leave shit everywhere.

In other words, we can basically do what we want, which is cool because we tend to know how to do what we want without killing ourselves, but some lifters in there seem bent on self-destruction (no safety pins/getting stapled while squatting, benching without any concept of their point of failure, etc) and could probably benefit/survive if someone came up to them in an official capacity and informed them that the risk of death resulting from their own activity was moderate-to-high.

At URI, the staff was located at a desk in the gym, and you could ask for the occasional spot if you so chose.

Our gym is a logistical nightmare; some well-to-do architect was likely handed a $69-million dollar check and instructed to design a "state-of-the-art" building, and he/she equated "state-of-the-art" with open, tiled space and an all-inclusive experience. Because of the variegated nature of the services offered--our gym purportedly has something for even the most fastidious cretin, as it's adorned with a full-size rock wall, a lazy river, a smoothie bar, and other non-essential, gaudy gimmicks--our gym has been separated into a number of rectangular compartments, and these compartments, in an effort to ostensibly spare the delicate sensibilities of the middle-aged alumni crowd, are sectioned off from one another.

The weight room, in other words, has been quartered off from everything else. It sits tucked away in a corner on the first floor. Even the machine and stretching areas on the second and third floors (clearly, these were separated for alumni to play with their non-threatening toys at a remove from the dreaded cacophony of the free-weight area) are quarantined in the corner of the building.

Staff stations on the first floor are located at the front entrance and near the locker rooms. Obstructed sight-lines prevent the staff near the locker room from descrying anything in the free-weight area, and a staircase obstructs the front-entrance staff from noting any barbell-related wrongdoing. The staff are far enough away that even the clanging of a failed squat wouldn't register, and they only come out of their safe havens to, with great trepidation, pick up towels.

The personal training staff is filled with meek fuckwads who break their own rules and manage to bump into your face as you're unracking a heavy squat. None of them will utter a peep, provided you're being reasonably quiet.

Our gym is a playground for unsupervised "adults"--and I use that term very loosely, since most of these so-called adults are developmentally backward country-bumpkin undergrads--and that's how it's treated. It is, at the same time, both tragic and wonderful.

 

[Keosawa]

Reverse-Band 4" Deficit Deadlift (170 lbs. at bottom, 115 lbs. at top)
225x5
315x3
405x1
455x1
495x1
545x1
585x5
615x3
635x1
585x2
585x2

Dimel Deadlifts, w/ same reverse bands
315x25
315x25
315x25

Back Extensions, w/ 52 lbs. in kettlebells
+52x25
+52x25
+52x25

Face-Pulls
136x15
147x15
147x15

External Rotations
13x10, 10
13x10, 10

Not the best pulling day ever. Not awful, either.

 

[WitchCraft]

I still can't believe you have a lazy river at your school!

 

[Keosawa]

Our gym is a big playground, and the lazy river is prime evidence of it.

Reverse-Band Bench Press (125 lbs. at bottom, 85 lbs. at top)
Barx20
135x10
225x5
275x1
315x1
355x1
365x1
375x1
385x1
395x1
405x1 (PR; 280 at bottom, 320 at top)
415x1 (PR; 290 at bottom, 330 at top)
345x7
345x8
345x8
w/ two-board
365x1
385x1
405x1

RE Dumbbell Press, 60-sec. rest intervals
Flat Bench, 65x20
15*, 60x20
30*, 55x15
45*, 50x12
60*, 45x8

Weighted Chin-Ups
BWx8
+50x3
+75x1
+95x4

My bench press was really strong on this day. I'm going to spend my last three weeks of meet prep doing a lot of pressing and less accessory work; I'm hoping all the sport-specific training will bring my bench up enough to make 292 a cinch at the meet.

 

[KnuckleSangwich]

I still can't believe you have a lazy river at your school!

I believe Mizzou has one of these as well. Their rec is consistently hailed as the nicest in the country. I almost went there too....damn.

The 'Tiger Grotto'

 

[Keosawa]

Ours is bigger, albeit not as "pretty."

DE Low Box Squats (2" below parallel) w/ 100 lbs. of chains
Bar+100x3
Bar+100x3
135+100x2
185+100x2
225+100x2
225+100x2
225+100x2
225+100x2
225+100x2
225+100x2
225+100x2
225+100x2
225+100x2

DE Sumo Deadlifts w/ 90 lbs. of chains
135x3
135x3
225x1
245x1
245x1
245x1
245x1
245x1
245x1
245x1
245x1

Squat Belt Walks
+190x5 trips
+190x5 trips

Dumbbell Windmills
70x10, 10
70x10, 10

 

[WitchCraft]

Is it possible to be too noobish to use Westside?

 

[Squat More]

Keo tearing shit up as usual, good shit brah.